Category: Laptops

Windows 8 on ARM shown at Computex, Microsoft becomes cool

Posted by Charbax – June 8, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Opinions, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Computex, Windows

Short of calling it Azure OS (yet..), Microsoft is going all-in making HTML5 web-apps the core of the next generation Windows 8 apps ecosystem. It means Microsoft is betting their farm on the cloud. Microsoft is going all-in for “immersive internet computing” touch screen tablet UI support. Microsoft is making sure ARM Powered Windows 8 works exactly like on x86.

Watch this following awesome demonstration and talk of Windows 8 on ARM at Computex. I embed it starting at time-code 17m49s when Mike Anguilo starts talking about ARM Windows 8 status, but also do make sure to rewind to the start to watch the full Windows 8 UI demos. Mike Anguilo runs Windows planning and is also responsible for Microsoft’s technical engagement with the Windows 8 ecosystem.

The Microsoft people like Mike Anguilo seem to have a serious plan, they probably still have some of the worlds best engineers on staff and they can afford to basically do whatever they want. It will be awesome to see how Microsoft will try to sustain a same or greater level of revenues and profits in such a rapidly auto-disrupting industry. While it can be argued Microsoft is late to the whole Smartphone and Tablet game, on the other hand the number of Smartphones sold in the last 5 years is probably 15x smaller compared to the number of Smartphones likely to be sold within the next 5 years. And the number of Tablets sold in the last 3 years likely is probably 150x smaller compared to the number of Tablets likely to be sold in the next 3 years. It sure looks to me like Windows 8 is going in the right direction for Microsoft. Since Windows 7, Microsoft has given up its always escalating hardware requirements Wintel strategy to instead focus on cutting off more and more of the bloatware. With Windows 8 they now even move over to an even more cloud centric Browser based HTML5 application ecosystem, sounds to me like an answer to Chrome OS in the form of an Azure OS with backwards “.exe compatibility”. The question is, how can Microsoft differentiate its UI enough to justify the proprietary pricing differences? Or if they plan to be priced comparatively even with the cheapest Android and Chrome OS Open Source alternatives, how can they provide enough of a differentiating user experience to hold unto those billion Windows PC users that they got with the previous Wintel PC ecosystem?

While I don’t know if it would make complete business sense and a corporations main focus legally has to be to take care of its shareholders, here are a few more directions I think Windows 8 might need to get into if they seriously want to be the dominant ARM Powered ecosystem:

– Windows 8 needs to be open source and free. They can do it like Google, and develop their next gens in secret hardware/chipset partnerships, but to get onto the next couple billion ARM Powered Smartphones, Tablets, Set-top-boxes, Laptops, they need it to be open and free. Nothing closed and pricey can ultimately win over open and free in the ARM world.

– Microsoft needs to focus on providing software as a service. The new Windows 8 App Store needs to have all the HTML5 apps, all the Android apps (yup.. why not?), and also, all the .exe apps (all Windows 98/XP/Vista/7 apps should just work), if not through native code execution then through cloud based software virtualization.

– Microsoft needs to focus on eliminating all the bloat, minimize the hardware requirements, make all ARM chipsets compatible and invite all manufacturers to use it for free. A $100 ARM Powered Laptop sold a year from now in every super market needs to be able to run a full Windows 8 OS, boot in 3 seconds, resume in 0.03 seconds and last 30 hours on a battery.

Do I think Microsoft can become so disruptive to its old business models so fast? I don’t know how such a corporation may or may not quickly adjust or/and change its leadership. I don’t know if Steve Ballmer needs to be replaced by a new CEO like Mike Anguilo or someone as cool as Google’s Vic Gundotra (who previously worked at Microsoft) for these major business model shifts to actually occur as soon as with Windows 8/Azure OS. If done correctly, Microsoft could maybe even make more money per new Windows user than they did on selling basic proprietary software licences. How hard could it be for Microsoft to provide good enough cloud services and web app and web content integration over a potentialy popular Windows 8 devices for them to make up more than those $40-$80 or so per Windows user over 2-5 years of use in average pure profits per user? Or will Microsoft insist on staying proprietary, closed, try to enforce some kind of closed profit margin value chain where they’d try to reserve some kind of significant profit margins some what imitating Apple’s large profit margins business model on selling ARM Powered devices? What do you think? Post your opinions on Windows 8 in the comments.

Here are a few awesome ARM Powered Windows 8 quotes that you can find in the 32-minute Microsoft Windows 8 Computex demo video:

The most important app of all on these systems is the browser. Over 60% of people’s time on any of those systems is focused in the browser.

We’ve extended the trend that we started with Windows 7, on keeping our system requirements on either flat or reducing them over time.

The newest addition to the Windows ecosystem is of course ARM.

This has been made possible in part because of the innovation that has been going on in the ARM ecosystem today. ARM SoC’s in general, virtually all of the new ones support Windows 8 system requirements. They all run over 1Ghz. They all have hardware accelerated graphics.

They are all getting more powerful. They are all getting more efficient. The cost is coming down and they are enabling thinner and lighter form factors than ever. In fact, all of these ARM Powered PCs that I am showing you here are not only able to experience to full Windows 8 experience you just saw, they are also able to support a new mode called Always On Always Connected. So the way you would it expect it from a Smartphone today, these systems will be able to instantly wake, they’ll be able to go in standby for a really long time with low power drain, get great battery life but stil stay syncing and connected all at the same time.

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Pixel Qi tablets can run on solar power

Posted by Charbax – June 3, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Energy Harvesting, Exclusive videos, Computex, Pixel Qi, OLPC, Android

A quite small modern solar panel can produce 1W of power, enough to power both the Pixel Qi and the whole ARM Powered tablet motherboard behind it. Think for a second how amazing this is. They can put solar panels on the bezel and the Tablet could basically be fully solar powered, have a bigger solar panel on the back of the tablet if you want to just charge it and not use it. This compact 1W Solar panel is $3. OLPC could be using this for the upcoming OLPC XO-1.75 Laptop and the XO-3 tablet.

Cupp Computing turns any Laptop into an ARM Laptop

Posted by Charbax – June 3, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, Computex, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu, Windows

Cupp Computing is now launching as a product their module to replace the hard drive in any Laptop, add an SSD, up to 2 MicroSD cards (one for the ARM Powered OS of your choice), and with a keyboard shortcut you instantly go from the ARM Powered OS to the x86 OS, and back while the x86 goes to sleep. The ARM Powered Laptop runs up to 40 hours on a battery, if you have just 10 minutes left of battery, switch to ARM mode and you’ve still got 1 hour of use to finish your work. In ARM Mode it can run Android, Ubuntu, Chrome OS and other. They are currently using OMAP3, they can use OMAP4 also soon for more ARM Performance. They also plan to work with motherboard manufacturers to add the whole ARM Powered laptop module right onto all motherboards so ARM Powered laptop mode becomes a default option in all laptops.

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Nufront Cortex-A9 Tablet and Desktop reference designs at Computex 2011

Posted by Charbax – June 2, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Exclusive videos, Nufront, Computex, Android, Ubuntu

They say that they can make a 2Ghz ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-core now, but for now they are demonstrating it at lower clock speeds on an Android tablet, an Ubuntu laptop and an all-in-one Ubuntu 11.4 desktop example.

Wyse T50 Thin Client on Marvell Armada 510 presented by Canonical Ubuntu

Posted by Charbax – June 2, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Marvell, Computex, Ubuntu

Wyse T50 is an Ubuntu Core powered thin client device, it is powered by Marvell Armada 510 (1Ghz). It features DVI, Ethernet, 4 usb host ports and an sd-card slot.

Texas Instruments OMAP4430 Memory Bandwidth, Desktop Computing performance

Posted by Charbax – May 31, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Texas Instruments, Computex, Ubuntu

They can do Android on the phone and at the same time output Ubuntu on a HDTV or Computer monitor. In this video, TI answers some of the questions regarding the OMAP4430’s memory bandwidth for desktop computing level of performance in web browsing and other apps as well as other details about the status of this platform for use to run a full desktop/laptop OS. TI also claims to have the best Flash support, doing up to 1080p Flash video in the Android browser just software based today on OMAP4430, and Flash 11 for Honeycomb coming out in August or September should be taking full use of GPU hardware acceleration providing even smoother Flash support. OMAP4460 is the platform that TI currently is using with Google for TI’s full Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich support working on fully optimizing hardware and software.

Asus Slider, to be released in June

Posted by Charbax – May 31, 2011
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, Computex, Android

Here’s a look at the Honeycomb powered Asus Slider to be released in June. Asus says their Eee Pad Transformer is popular, is this one going to be as popular? Are they going to price this one as much as the Transformer plus the keyboard add-on?

CUPP Computing transforms all Laptops to ARM Powered laptops

Posted by Charbax – May 30, 2011
Category: Laptops, Texas Instruments, Computex, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu

Here at Computex, CUPP Computing just released their first ARM Powered module. You take out the hard drive and replace it with this Texas Instruments ARM Powered board, one keyboard shortcut to jump instantly from your x86 OS to any ARM Powered OS, be it Android, Ubuntu, Chromium OS and other.

Read more here: http://www.jkkmobile.com/2011/05/punk-this-module-from-cupp-computing.html

Chris Pirillo says Chromebook just killed the PC industry

Posted by Charbax – May 13, 2011
Category: Laptops, Opinions, Google, Chrome OS

My take on it is that the Chromebook is the first serious challenger to Windows/Mac in terms of being installed in a mass market retail product. It’s the first ever mass market Linux laptop (after the One Laptop Per Child non-profit reaching 2.5 million children with Linux Laptops in the developping world since 2007). It’s the first ever mass market ARM Powered laptop. It can be configured to be the cheapest laptop to make, the safest, the fastest, the thinnest, the lightest and the easiest to use. Chromebook may be the first successful carrier subscription based laptop.

For Chromebook to sell more than Windows, here’s what I think Chromebook needs to be:

– $199 or less in an ARM Powered configuration
– Use Pixel Qi with ARM and you’ve got 30 hours battery runtime in a sub-1kg 11.6″ or 12.1″ super slim form factor
– They should subsidize these in partnership with the carriers to do a subscription model for normal consumers like this:
1. Sell it for $99 or less on a 2-year contract with $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plan
2. Bandwidth upgrades should be max $10/GB, $20/5GB, $30/10GB on-demand one-click
3. They can use carrier billing (thus carrier revenue share) for bandwidth upgrades, for cloud media subscriptions, on-demand, Chrome Web Store web apps and for all Google Checkout based online shopping
4. Provide an optional hardware upgrade once a year with contract extension. Used devices can be resold refurbished.
5. Provide 100GB or more cloud storage and full Google Apps for consumers with the subscription, offer guarantee of available of advanced web apps such as HD video editing (with many or most of the features of Avid/Finalcut), photo editor. And all these web apps must feel near instant to load and work offline, a web app should only need to get reloaded if it detects that there is a new version available. Gmail should load instantly for example.
6. Obviously, Google Voice and Google Music needs to be worldwide. They should also expand with a Google Video cloud storage. Basically they can allow people to upload 20’000 songs and 1’000 movies for free, the reason being, Google only needs to store one copy of each song or movie, and if the upload client (also on Chrome OS) detects that the file you want to upload already exists on Google’s servers in equal or better quality, it should instantly beam it to your account without actually requiring you to upload anything. Google should not care to try to filter out any “illegal” Mp3, Flac, DivX, MKV files. Eventually they can introduce unlimited music/movies subscription plans like Spotify/Netflix but they should aim at being able to include access to everything in those unlimited subscriptions, this might only be achievable through Government regulation of online content subscriptions.

If Google can deliver on those things and quickly, which is what I expect them to be able to do, then I think it’s obvious Chromebook could become the number 1 PC/Laptop OS as quickly as they became number 1 OS in smartphones since the Nexus One was released.

Can we expect to see some ARM Powered Chromebooks (or Chromiumbooks) at Computex in Taiwan at the end of May from all the Taiwanese notebook designers (Inventec, Pegatron, Wistron, Foxconn, Shuttle, Gigabyte etc..) who design upwards 90% of worldwide notebooks?

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ARM Powered Chromebooks to be released soon

Posted by Charbax – May 12, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Google, Chrome OS

As a reply to my ARM Powered Chromebook Chrome OS notebook question posted online, the Google Chrome Team confirms that while they are focusing right now on getting the Intel Powered Samsung and Acer devices out the door on June 15th, the Chrome OS team is also working hard on ARM support and the ARM Powered Chromebooks should be released soon after. Their wording is the ARM Chromebooks are “hot on the trails” of the Intel Powered ones. This could be the first mass market ARM Powered laptop ever released.

The advantage of an ARM Powered Chrome OS device is that it is thinner, lighter, runs longer on a battery and especialy could be sold for a lot cheaper. I’m expecting the ARM Powered Chromebooks to sell below $199 for them to become the new best selling notebook platform.

Apple to (obviously) use ARM in next Macbook

Posted by Charbax – May 6, 2011
Category: Laptops, Opinions

Apple profits mostly thanks to ARM technology

Apple profits mostly thanks to ARM technology

Semiaccurate.com cites sources, and the whole blogosphere is erupting over the rumor that Apple is preparing to use ARM instead Intel in their next Macbook. Here’s my take on it:

Thanks to ARM technology, Apple has become the worlds second biggest company (valued at $322 Billion) after Exxon Mobil (valued at $411 Billion). Before using ARM, Apple was in near bankruptcy, and then they got the idea to make those ARM Powered iPod. And as the obvious thing in 2007 they introduced the ARM Powered iPhone. The iPhone now stands for more than 50% of Apple’s $70 Billion yearly revenues and the iPhone may actually represent more than 75% of Apple’s yearly $17 Billion profit.

ARM is the best way to make huge profits.

And Apple needs to find all ways to keep making big profits, as their share is priced so high, it can only stay as high for as long as they can find ways to continue to make huge profits.

The iPhone may provide Apple with as much as 334% profit margins. ($150 BOM and $650 average sale price)

The iPad may provide Apple with about 155% profit margins. ($225 BOM and $575 average sale price)

The Macbook Air, while expensive, probably only provide Apple with 64% profit margin. ($700 BOM and $1200 average sale price)

This is Apple’s ARM Powered laptop plan:

Make the thinner, lighter ARM Powered OSX laptop, with a Pixel Qi type screen they could achieve 30 hours battery runtime or more. It would cost them only $300 to make (BOM) and Apple probably thinks they can still sell it for at least $799 that’s a 166% profit margin, nearly 3x more profits for Apple compared to them still using Intel.

The question for Apple R&D is only this one, should they go ahead and use Apple A5 ARM Cortex-A9 (clocked higher than in iPad2’s 861Mhz) with some faster memory bandwidth design, put in there some more RAM and optimize their OSX/iOS mashup software for a release before this years Christmas already? Or should Apple wait for Apple A6 ARM Cortex-A15 and to try and have that ready for mass selling before Christmas 2012 at the latest? How do you think Apple will make that OSX/iOS ARM based OS mashup work for their next Macbook? (post in the comments)

You have to consider, I am not suggesting that Apple will succeed in continuing to keep making so huge profits on ARM Powered devices. I for example believe that the $87 Android Smartphones and the diversity in high-end Android smartphones is a significant threat to Apple’s iPhone profit margins and marketshare*. Though I am definitely sure that Apple will continue to make 100x more profits on their ARM Powered devices compared to their Intel based devices, and that thus Apple is obviously aiming to shift their Notebook line to ARM as soon as possible.

* especially if they continue making design mistakes like the Anntenna not working in left hand and the iOS devices recording your every move for years in an unencrypted cache file any friend/enemy/backdoor-hacker can snoop on over 100 million iOS device users until they manually decide to upgrade with their new 666MB iOS upgrade file.

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$25 ARM Powered Desktop presented by Raspberry Pi Foundation

Posted by Charbax2 – May 6, 2011
Category: Laptops, Development Boards, Ubuntu

The Raspberry Pi Foundation (a UK non-profit) plans to develop, manufacture and distribute an ultra-low-cost computer, for use in teaching computer programming to children. They expect this computer to have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world. Their first product is about the size of a USB key, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured system.

Here are the specs:

  • 700MHz ARM11
  • 128MB of SDRAM
  • OpenGL ES 2.0
  • 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
  • Composite and HDMI video output
  • USB 2.0
  • SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
  • General-purpose I/O
  • Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

And who exactly is it targeted at, well, students. It runs Ubuntu and will come preloaded with educational applications. Suggestions for it’s use and recommendations of software are welcome through email. Oh, and it’s purported to cost only $25… Head on over to their site Raspberry Pi.

Video posted by Rory Cellan-Jones on http://bbc.co.uk

This post was submitted by Jon Hubert Bristol on the Submit News page here at http://138.2.152.197/submit-news/. If you have any other awesome ARM related news, you are welcome to post it here!

Trim-Slice, compact Tegra2 Desktop, now released for $199

Posted by Charbax – May 1, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, Ubuntu

Here’s a powerful super compact Nvidia Tegra2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-core 1Ghz based Desktop box, for now seems to run something like Ubuntu 11.4 (ARM netbook edition?), but the software support is a process that is a work-in-progress. Their pricing starts at $199 for the basic model, I will try to get a review unit, what do you think about this type of compact ARM Powered desktop?

Haifa, Israel – 30-Apr-2011 – CompuLab is announcing immediate availability of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Trim-Slice miniature computer.

Trim-Slice is offered in 3 configurations –

Trim-Slice Barebone – with 1 GHz Tegra 2, 1 GB RAM, HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 USB ports, 2 SD slots and RS232 serial port. Trim-Slice Barebone MSRP is $199.

Trim-Slice Value – adds a 4 GB micro-SD card with Linux pre-installed and a USB 802.11n WiFi adapter. Trim-Slice Value MSRP is $219.

Trim-Slice Pro – with 1 GHz Tegra 2, 1 GB RAM, 32 GB SSD with Linux pre-installed, HDMI and DVI ports, Gigabit Ethernet, built-in 802.11n WiFi, 4 USB ports, 2 SD slots, RS232 serial port and a USB Bluetooth adapter. Trim-Slice Pro MSRP is $319.

OEMs and system-integrators can order Trim-Slice in volume with customization of feature set, branding and case finish.

Trim-Slice currently runs Linux and is supported in the mainline kernel revision 2.6.39. Support for other operating-systems is work-in-progress. “We design Trim-Slice with SW developers in mind” said Irad Stavi, Director of Business Development at CompuLab. “Developers that are looking for an open cost-effective high-performance ARM platform are likely to find Trim-Slice an attractive and unique solution that is very convenient for SW development.”

Source: http://trimslice.com/web/pr-11043

Shenzhen Hongda Technology manufactures $260 14″ Intel Atom laptop

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Intel, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Windows

Another look into the factory of Shenzhen Hongda Technology (see Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 1: Hongda Factory tour) where they manufacture for example this $260 14″ Intel Atom powered laptop.

Shenzhen Bly Electronics shows $60 VIA Wondermedia based laptops

Posted by Charbax – April 20, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, VIA, China Sourcing Fair, Android

First seen a bit over a year ago such as in this video, the VIA ARM9 Wondermedia SoC and software solution is one of the platforms that makes it easy to make cheap laptops and tablets. Chrome OS software or Honeycomb seems to be needed for this type of $60 ARM Powered laptop solution to start to become viable solution. But probably also that faster processor with more RAM is also needed for full speed web browsing performance.

Malata PC-B1002, Malata PC-B1301, Tegra2 Laptops

Posted by Charbax – April 16, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Android, Chrome OS

Malata announces new ARM Powered Laptops at HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair. They are not ready to show working prototypes of them yet. There is a 10″ similar to Toshiba AC-100, but also a 13.3″ ARM Powered Laptop! In my opinion, it’s important software for ARM Powered Laptops gets ready also for these products to be commercially viable. Honeycomb might do the trick, with slight Laptop-oriented optimizations and its awesome new large screen optimized multi-tab web browser, but Chrome OS for ARM may be even better for this type of product.

Rockchip RK2918 powered Laptop

Posted by Charbax – April 16, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Rockchip, China Sourcing Fair, Android

OK this is cool. Put a Rockchip RK2918 in a laptop, add Honeycomb or Chrome OS on ARM, and you’ve got possibly one of the most affordable ARM Powered laptops right there.

Wabook does $60 Android 10″ Laptop (Wondermedia)

Posted by Charbax – April 16, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, VIA, China Sourcing Fair, Android

Some of those cheap ARM Powered laptops, but still ARM11 based.

Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 1: Hongda Factory tour

Posted by Charbax – April 12, 2011
Category: Laptops, Factory Tours, Exclusive videos, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Windows

See how Intel Atom netbooks are being manufactured in a small sized factory in Shenzhen. They also sometimes manufacture Android tablets, it depends what there is demand for, usually they manufacture one thing during each day. What I heard from someone, is that their salary may be around $300 per month working like this 6 days a week. And that the Government some times passes regulation to increase salaries of the workers. It is interesting to consider that relatively small factories can be setup to assemble consumer electronics products, I wonder how those compete with the gigantic Chinese consumer electronics factories.

Also watch my other videos in my series “Shenzhen Behind the Scenes“:
1: Hongda Factory tour
2: utopiacn, Apad Android Tablet maker
3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer
4: Walking around the Shenzhen smartphone market
5: 3Gnet Factory Tour

Linaro to establish leadership in embedded software accross all ARM chips

Posted by Charbax – March 27, 2011
Category: Laptops, Software, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu

Linaro was established last year, and they are making rapid progress in bringing up Linux on ARM, the goal being to solve fragmentation, to catch up with Intel’s x86 through consolidation and development of common ARM Linux code. Linaro’s ultimate goal is to establish leadership in core technology open source innovation on ARM member SoCs. Linaro wants to accelerate time to market. Not just catch up with Intel, Linaro’s goal is absolute leadership.

Here’s a 27 minute video update from Linaro CEO George Grey about the plans that they have got for this year, as they expect 2011 to be a huge year for Linaro, their software is rapidly making it possible to have fully optimized ARM powered Linux laptops and desktops released to the market this year. Basically, Linaro is a company build out of the ARM industry collaborating to bring to market ARM Powered Chrome OS laptops, ARM Powered Ubuntu Laptops, even for all of the Android and Meego stuff.

This video was posted last month on the LinaroOrg YouTube channel.

Linaro has grown to over 80 engineers in the first 6 months. They are still adding engineering talent every month. At launch it was stated that the company would grow to a little under 100 engineers. You can find more information at http://linaro.org. What do you think Linaro should do to make it easier for companies to build ARM based Linux products? You can post your info and ideas in the comments.

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